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BEHIND THE BESTSELLERS

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996.
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Richard Simmons, author of the ''Never-Say-Diet Book,'' used to weigh 268 pounds. Then one day, while working as a ''fat model'' in Europe, he says he discovered a note resting under the windshield wiper of his car. It said: ''Fat people die young. Please don't die. Anonymous.'' It was, he says, the inspiration he needed to go on a diet, and today, the five-foot seven-inch Mr. Simmons is a svelte 138 pounds.

He is also the proprietor of a Beverly Hills restaurant and exercise studio called Ruffage and the Anatomy Asylum, which attracts such celebrities as Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Henry Winkler and Diana Ross. Mr. Simmons, who is a boyish-looking 32 years old, also appears weekly as himself on the ABC soap opera, ''General Hospital,'' in which he tries to help two of the actresses lose weight. And he is the host of his own syndicated television show, ''The Richard Simmons Show,'' a humorous half-hour exercise show seen in 80 cities. (It is shown in New York City every weekday at 7:00 A.M. on Channel 9.)

With exposure like this in a country where dieting is a national obsession, it seemed that a book was inevitable. It was. And now Mr. Simmons's ''Never-Say-Diet Book,'' published last November by Warner Books, has become a bestseller. The book contains Mr. Simmons's ''Live-It Food Plan'' (''I never use the word diet, because it contains the word, die,'' he says.), which is basically a wellbalanced, low-calorie approach to eating and includes 32 exercises that he believes should accompany the program.

The book takes the same humorous approach that Mr. Simmons uses on his exercise show, where he portrays such characters as a policeman on the ''Slob Squad'' who patrols a supermarket parking lot and gives tickets to those who buy fattening foods. It also contains a warning that the reader must not eat any junk food while reading it, because ''certain foods will automatically wipe the words right off the pages.''

Mr. Simmons said he was inspired to do the book after reading ''The Hite Report'' on female sexuality by Shere Hite. ''I think she helped a lot of people,'' he said. ''I read that she sent out a lot of questionnaires, so I decided to do a questionnaire about fat. I had 100,000 of them printed, and every Sunday I'd take them to the bus station and the airport and give them to cab drivers and stewardesses to hand out.''

Eventually, he said, he got 78,000 of the questionnaires back. One of them wound up in the hands of Christine Conrad, then an editor at Warner Books, who conceived the idea for the book. After the contract was signed, Mr. Simmons said he hired a Los Angeles writer, Suzy Kalter, to help him with the organization of the book ''and to make sure everything was grammatically correct.''

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''I have a very comical way of writing, which is not always the best English,'' he explained. ''But it's the way I talk, and frankly, I like it a lot better than the language in a Somerset Maugham book.''

Mr. Simmons said he thought one of the reasons for his book's success was that he frequently plugged it on his exercise show. (''But I'm not allowed to talk about it on 'General Hospital.' '') He said another factor was his frequent appearances at shopping malls around the country, ''where I can sell 300 to 700 books in two hours.''

Mr. Simmons, who is now working on a cook book, said he planned to use some of the profits from his books to build an exercise center in Los Angeles for handicapped children and adults. (He currently runs special exercise classes for overweight blind and deaf people at his Anatomy Asylum.)

''I was handicapped all my life until I lost weight,'' he said. ''I was always the first in line for lunch, and the last to be chosen for sports. I know how it feels.''

A version of this article appears in print on February 15, 1981, on Page 7007034 of the National edition with the headline: BEHIND THE BESTSELLERS. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe